Power interruptions are a fact of working in Harare. What matters is that everyone does the same thing in the same order when one happens, because a coordinated floor recovers in minutes and an uncoordinated one loses a shift.
This article covers what happens automatically, what you should do, and what you shouldn’t.
What’s protected and what isn’t
Not everything on your desk is on backup power, and knowing the difference explains most of what you’ll see.
On UPS. The network equipment, the servers, and your workstation. These stay up when mains drops, which is why your machine keeps running while other things go dark.
Not on UPS. The lights, the air conditioning, and in most cases your monitors. If the room goes dark and your screens go black but the workstation fan is still running, that’s normal and expected — the machine is alive, you just can’t see it.
The UPS is a bridge, not a solution. It’s sized to keep critical equipment running long enough for the generator to pick up or for an orderly shutdown — not to run a full shift. Treat every minute on battery as borrowed time.
What happens automatically
Mains drops. The UPS takes the load instantly, with no interruption to the network or your workstation. You’ll usually hear an alarm from the UPS — that’s it doing its job, not a fault.
The generator starts and takes over. There’s a short gap during the changeover, which is exactly what the UPS is covering.
Connectivity may wobble briefly during the changeover. If the dialler drops a call at that moment, that’s why.
What to do, in order
1. Stay at your desk. The floor needs to stay calm and countable. Don’t crowd the corridors or the IT area.
2. Finish the call you’re on if you can. If your workstation is still running and the customer is still connected, keep going. Ending a call abruptly is worse for the customer than a slightly awkward one.
3. If your screens are dark but the machine is on, wait. Don’t press the power button. Don’t hold it down. When the monitors come back, your session will still be there. Forcing a shutdown here is the single most common way people lose work during an outage.
4. Don’t unplug anything. Not your monitor, not your headset, not the workstation. Reseating cables during a power event creates faults that outlast the outage.
5. Wait for the announcement. Your team leader will confirm whether the floor is standing down or continuing. Don’t self-dispatch.
If your workstation actually powers off
That means it wasn’t on protected power, or the UPS has been exhausted. Leave it off. Don’t repeatedly press the power button trying to bring it back — powering a machine on and off during unstable supply is how power supplies die.
Wait for the all-clear, then start up normally, log in, and log back into the dialler. Check your last few dispositions saved correctly before carrying on.
When it’s extended
If the outage runs long enough that the floor stands down, your team leader will tell you what happens with your shift. That’s a management decision, not an IT one.
What IT needs from you in the meantime: don’t try to work from a personal device, don’t photograph screens to “carry on later,” and don’t move customer information anywhere to keep working. The rules don’t relax during an outage. If anything, an outage is exactly when improvised workarounds create data protection incidents.
What to report, and what not to
Don’t log a ticket for the outage itself. IT already knows. Twenty tickets saying “power is off” bury the ones that matter.
Do log a ticket for anything that didn’t come back properly:
- Your workstation won’t start after the all-clear
- A monitor stayed dark when everything else returned
- The dialler won’t accept your login after recovery
- Anything that smells hot, sounds wrong, or shows a burning or scorch mark — phone as well as log this one
Do tell your team leader how many calls were lost and roughly when, so campaign reporting reflects reality.
Why we don’t just run everything on generator
People ask this reasonably often. Running the entire floor — lights, air conditioning, all workstations, all monitors — on generator continuously costs considerably more per hour than mains, and fuel supply itself isn’t guaranteed. The setup we have prioritises the things that would take longest to recover from: network, servers, and your sessions. Lights and air conditioning are uncomfortable to lose but nothing breaks.
The one-line summary
Stay at your desk, don’t touch the power button, don’t unplug anything, and wait for the announcement.
Read next: How to Log a Ticket, and What Happens When Systems Go Down.
Watch: Business continuity and disaster recovery explained — a short animation covering why organisations plan for this and what the plans do.
